The present invention relates to low defect silicon carbide wafers and their use as precursors for semiconductor purposes, to seeded sublimation growth of large, high-quality silicon carbide single crystals, and to high quality epitaxial growth upon such low defect wafers.
The invention is also related to the following copending and commonly assigned U.S. applications: Ser. No. 10/628,189 filed Jul. 28, 2003 for Growth of Ultra-High Purity Silicon Carbide Crystals in an Ambient Containing Hydrogen; Ser. No. 10/628,188 filed Jul. 28, 2003 for Reducing Nitrogen Content in Silicon Carbide Crystals by Sublimation Growth in a Hydrogen-Containing Ambient; Ser. No. 10/707,898 filed Jan. 22, 2004 for Silicon Carbide on Diamond Substrates and Related Devices and Methods; Ser. No. 60/522,326 filed Sep. 15, 2004 for Seed Preparation for the Growth of High Quality Large Size Silicon Carbide Crystals; Ser. No. 10/915,095 filed Aug. 10, 2004 for Seed and Seedholder Combinations for High Quality Growth of Large Silicon Carbide Single Crystals; and Ser. No. 10/876,963 filed Jun. 25, 2004 for One Hundred Millimeter High Purity Semi-Insulating Single Crystal Silicon Carbide Wafer. The contents of these applications are likewise incorporated entirely herein by reference.
Silicon carbide has found use as semiconductor material for various electronic devices and purposes in recent years. Silicon carbide is especially useful due to its physical strength and high resistance to chemical attack. Silicon carbide also has excellent electronic properties, including radiation hardness, high breakdown field, a relatively wide band gap, high saturated electron drift velocity, high-temperature operation, and absorption and emission of high-energy photons in the blue, violet, and ultraviolet regions of the spectrum.
Silicon carbide is a difficult material to work with because it can crystallize in over 150 polytypes, some of which are separated from one another by very small thermodynamic differences. Furthermore, because of silicon carbide's high melting point (over 2700° C. under high pressure), many processes for working silicon carbide, including epitaxial film deposition, often need to be carried out at much higher temperatures than analogous reactions in other semiconductor materials.
As well recognized by those of ordinary skill in the relevant arts, the electronic performance of devices made from or including a given semiconductor material depend upon the structure of the device, the physical characteristics of the material (e.g., the band gap limits the highest frequency wavelength of the light that can be produced) and also upon the quality of the crystal. Stated differently, although some electronic devices can be successfully formed in polycrystalline semiconductor materials, many more require single crystal semiconductor portions that have high crystal quality and resulting excellent performance. Stated in yet another fashion, the theoretical capabilities of a given semiconductor material, including silicon carbide, remain functionally meaningless unless and until the material can be produced in useful quality and quantities.
Single crystal silicon carbide is often produced by a seeded sublimation growth process. In a typical silicon carbide growth technique, the seed crystal and a source powder are both placed in a reaction crucible which is heated to the sublimation temperature of the source and in a manner that produces a thermal gradient between the source and the marginally cooler seed crystal. The thermal gradient encourages vapor phase movement of the materials from the source to the seed followed by condensation upon the seed and the resulting bulk crystal growth. The method is also referred to as physical vapor transport (PVT).
In a typical silicon carbide growth technique, the crucible is made of graphite and is heated by induction or resistance, with the relevant coils and insulation being placed to establish and control the desired thermal gradient. The source powder is silicon carbide, as is the seed. The crucible is oriented vertically, with the source powder in the lower portions and the seed positioned at the top, typically on the seed holder; see U.S. Pat. No. 4,866,005 (reissued as No. Re 34,861) the contents of which are incorporated entirely herein by reference. These sources are exemplary, rather than limiting, descriptions of modern seeded sublimation growth techniques.
Following bulk growth, the crystal is often cut into blocks having a predetermined shape, ground at the periphery and then set in a slicer. In the slicer, the crystal block is sliced into wafers having a predetermined thickness by a high-speed rotating blade.
Typically, a slicing blade is representatively an inner diameter saw prepared by cutting a thin stainless steel sheet to an annular shape and depositing a Ni plating layer in which diamond abrasives are embedded on an inner edge of the shaped stainless steel sheet.
A wafer obtained by slicing a crystal ingot in this manner is likely to deviate in thickness and flatness due to various conditions such as the tension applied to the slicing blade, adherence of diamond abrasives onto an inner edge of the blade, and the dimensional accuracy of a rotation axis of a slicer. If slicing conditions are not appropriate, a work damage layer which extends from the surface is deeply developed into the inner part of the sliced wafer.
This slicing operation can also be achieved through the use of wire saws, where a wire is used in place of the cutting blade. In this case the abrasives are either embedded into the wire, or contained in a slurry that is sprayed onto the wire immediately prior to the slicing operation. In this case similar thickness and flatness variations are observed.
These unfavorable deviations resulting from slicing may be reduced by lapping a sliced wafer.
With reference to FIGS. 1(a) and (b), in a conventional lapping method, a plurality of wafers 2 are set in carriers 4 and located on a lower lapping plate 6, in the manner such that the wafers 2 are uniformly distributed on the lower lapping plate 6. An upper lapping plate 8 is brought down into contact with the wafers 2, abrasives are fed into a gap between the lower lapping plate 6 and the upper lapping plate 8, and the wafers 2 are rotated and revolved. During rotation and revolution, the wafers 2 are ground with the abrasives. A commonly used slurry is prepared by suspending Diamond or Boron Nitride grains as abrasives having a particle size of approximately 10 μm in a proper amount of water or other solvent.
One drawback to traditional lapping and slicing techniques is the introduction of warp, bow, and total thickness variations (TTV) in the sliced wafers. “Warp” is defined as the difference between minimum and maximum values of the wafer surface measured from a reference plane. Deviations include both convex and concave variations. Warp is a bulk defect (i.e., a defect that affects an entire wafer, not just portions of the wafer surface). “Bow” is the concavity or deformation of the wafer as measured from the center of the wafer, independent of any thickness variation. “Total thickness variation” is defined as the absolute difference in thickness between the thickest and thinnest parts of the wafer.
Wafers with high warp, bow and TTV may be undesirable for several reasons. For example, during epitaxial growth processes, high warp, bow and TTV levels result in uneven contact between the wafer and susceptor. Such uneven contact may result in thermal variations across the seed during the epitaxial growth process. Also high warp values may increase the risk of wafer cracking during the device fadrication steps due to the stresses induced as the wafer is sucked down to the vacuum chucks.
Accordingly, producing larger high quality silicon carbide with low warp bow and TTV levels in wafers sliced from crystals formed in the seeded sublimation system remains a constant technical commercial goal.